Aethersmith (Book 2) (31 page)

Rakashi was the only one of the four of them who did not
live in Kadrin, and only Tanner had met him on the other side. They knew he was
from Safschan, but Veydran politics were of little concern to them, even should
they find themselves on opposite sides of the war between Kadrin and the
Megrenn Alliance.

“Yes, for many years, though not for many years,” Rakashi
replied cryptically. “We held a common cause once and aided one another. I feel
better now about your plan, since I know whose head to cut off should we be
betrayed.” Rakashi smiled at Stalyart, who took the threat in stride, his own
smile never faltering.

“Well, this ship is in good enough shape to sail. We can
make repairs to the main sail once we are in calm winds or when we reach our
destination. Someone throw the rest of those coinblades in the water, but not
the crew. We will let them sail their own ship,” Stalyart ordered.

“Hey!” objected one of the aforementioned survivors from
among the dozens of hired blades who had been brought on board. “How ’bout some
o’ that mercy. I’ll fight for ya, work for ya, pay a ransom if ya put me
ashore. C’mon!”

“Ahh. You make a common mistake, I am afraid,” Stalyart
explained. “I once sailed with Captain Denrik Zayne when his ship was the
Honest
Merchant
. Once, when we captured a ship and took its cargo, their captain
said, ‘You claim to be a merchant? Your ship’s name is a lie.’ Zayne replied,
‘It is the ship whose name is
Honest Merchant
. My name is Denrik Zayne
and I am a pirate.’ So you see, it is the ship that is merciful, not I. My name
is Robbono Stalyart, and I am a practical man.”

Stalyart was merciful enough, though, that he allowed the
condemned men to remove any armor or clothing they wished, and he was dropping
them in the water along a major trade route. There was a chance they might be
rescued before drowning or being eaten.

“Where are we heading?” Soria asked as they headed back to
the
Merciful
. She had hardened herself to killing long ago, but tried
not to be wanton about it. The callousness of the pirates condemning men to the
sea with some faint whiff of hope for rescue sat poorly with her. Her die was
cast, though, and she had to see how it fell.

“Denku Appa,” Stalyart replied. He looked Soria over
appraisingly: tall, fierce, driven, and beautiful with her natural green eyes
and auburn hair displayed once more. “I think you will not like it there.”

Chapter 18 - A True Beginning

A cold, patchy grey-white blur rushed past them, obscuring
all vision. The men on deck were bundled against the elements as if it were the
dead of winter, and not early springtime. The winds were of their own making,
not any natural current of the air. Krogen would not be able to keep them at
such a pace for long, but they needed to keep their speed up for their next
maneuver.

The cloud they flew through turned wispy as they reached the
end of it, before giving way entirely, and bathing the crew of the
Thunderstorm
in crisp, clean sunshine. Below them spread the majesty of the north Kadrin
landscape, verdant hills with blossoming wildflowers, plowed farmland with
endless furrows planted for the summer harvest, and an army camped about the
hillside city of Munne.

Munne was not a beautiful city. Viewed from on high, it
looked like an ugly blemish on the pastoral wonder of the countryside, a block
of grey and brown buildings surrounded by high walls that rose and fell as they
traced the contour of the dozen or so hills that constituted the city’s
geography. Bridges spanned the Sweetwater River that cut the city in two.
Others occasionally joined hill to hill over less hospitable terrain or
connected buildings at heights other than ground level. Bridges and walls were
Munne’s defining features, other than the hills it sat upon. With naught but a
fifth of Kadris’s population, it still counted itself among the Kadrin Empire’s
larger cities.

While Munne was not a great prize of artistry or
architecture, the army that camped all about it was far more colorful and
diverse. There was the monohorn cavalry that had made the sacking of Temble
Hill so easy, camped before the rest of the Megrenn forces like a shield of
thick, tough hide. Native Megrenn infantry spread across the plains, settled
into brightly colored tents, with cook fires burning. The large, black tents
held sorcerers from Ghelk, few in number, but safe behind wards if the scouts’
tales proved true. Safschan had sent horsemen and bowmen, but the vexing
contribution of theirs was the stripe-cats: hulking felines larger than horses
and faster in short bursts, with claws and fangs that would send many Kadrin
soldiers to their pyres before the war would end. If possible, worse still were
the rock-hurlers.

The goblin-made devices were impossible to defend against,
and the
Thunderstorm
and her two sister ships—the
Cloud Maiden
and the
Dragonhawk—
had devoted much of their efforts to harrying them
and their crews. At Marshal Brannis’s insistence, Munne’s defenders had filled
empty grain sacks with gravel, dirt, sawdust, and anything else they could find
and piled them before the walls. Between the airships’ efforts, the sacks
dispersing the effects of the Megrenn siege engines, and Munne’s hilly
geography hampering the monohorns, the city continued to hold out.

“Sorcerer Krogen, prepare us to dive!” ordered Captain
Drecker, shouting over the shrieking wind. “Port side, prepare to rake the
stripe-cats as we pass!”

With all the other efforts of the Megrenn forces held at
bay, the arrival of the stripe-cat cavalry—the pride of Safschan and an
integral part of the Megrenn Rebellion twenty-one winters ago—was cause for
serious concern.

“Aye, sir!” Krogen shouted back.

The
Thunderstorm
pitched forward, giving the crew a
spectacular panoramic view of the siege far below. Archers scrambled to catch
hold of the high netting that kept the crew from falling over the ship’s railings.
Once situated, they took hold of the net, each gripping both it and their bows
with their left hand while drawing with the right. Though Drecker had given no
specific order, men at the aft of the ship were opening crates of blacksmithing
debris: worn shoes, rusted plows, spare ingots, and the like. The airship was
traveling at a terrific speed, and even without aiming, the flotsam would play
havoc among the encamped forces.

The ground rushed up at them. Captain Drecker felt his
stomach clench. A man of the sea, he had ridden out storms that had pitched his
ship thusly in times past. Ever before, there had been water before him, and
the promise of another wave. It was a grueling ordeal at sea, but there seemed
to have been so much more room for error then than with the Munne countryside
hurtling toward them with no promise but a messy demise should they fail to
pull up in time.

“Hard to port! Level us out!” the captain screamed. His
stomach dropped into his boots as the
Thunderstorm
pulled out of its
dive a dozen paces above the battlefield and no more. It was the closest they
had come to hitting the ground in the eight times they had tried the maneuver.
Either they were getting better at it or they had narrowly averted disaster.
Captain Drecker had yet to decide which.

As the ship banked hard, the deck pitched precipitously
beneath their feet. The archers at the port railing were facing nearly straight
down as they began firing, their boots jammed firmly to the deck by the force
of their turn. They passed their targets too quickly to survey what damage they
had wrought, but between the twoscore archers and the spilled iron scrap, they
must have left a mark upon their adversaries.

Archers screamed and shied away from the railings as a
riderless stripe-cat leapt at the ship. Its claws caught in the netting,
jerking the ship in the air before cutting through the heavy ropes. It took no
order for Krogen to pull them up and begin their climb to escape retributive
fire from the ground.

Kthooom.

Something whistled past the
Thunderstorm
. Captain
Drecker did not need two guesses as to what it might have been.

“Get us up and out of here,
now
!” he ordered. “The
frolicking whoresons have managed to aim the blasted things
up
.”

I hope those dratted iron balls rain back down on their
own lousy heads,
Drecker thought.

Kthoom.

The captain saw a blur as the second shot whizzed past.

Kthoom—CRACK!

“Turn us back to the city. Get us up to cloud level, on the
double!” Drecker ordered.

He did not see the damage. Had they been at sea, a hit below
the waterline was sure to sink a ship unless the damage was miniscule. There
was no chance of that with the Megrenn weapons. Warded as the ship’s hull was,
it was suited to turning aside arrows and spears, not the iron balls the Megrenns’
goblin weapons threw. Fortunately the worst they could take on was air, which
seemed harmless enough, so long as no one fell out through the hole.

“Krogen,
up
, I said!” he shouted again.

“It’s no good, sir,” Krogen said into the captain’s ear,
stumbling into the man as the ship lurched. “Those runes were damaged. We
aren’t even going to have the
up
we’ve got for much longer. It has been
a pleasure to know you, sir.”

“Indeed.” Captain Drecker solemnly took the sorcerer’s
offered hand and shook it.

The ground hurtled toward the
Thunderstorm
once more,
Megrenn troops scattering at their approach. This time, they did not pull up.

* * * * * * * *

Commander Stotaala Bal-Kaynnyn eased her stripe-cat through
the throng that surrounded the downed Kadrin airship. Soldiers fell over
themselves to get out of the beast’s way. With the tight-packed groups that
wanted to get up close to the wondrous ship that had been harrying them for
days, there was only so much room to give. The stripe-cat found its footing
with a grace that belied its bulk.

The commander was wearing a shaggy, hooded fur jacket over
her leather armor, dyed to match the brown-and-green striped pattern of her
mount. Had the Kadrin weather been akin to her native Safschan, she would have
painted her skin to match instead. Pressed against Katiki’s back, she would be
hard to discern for archers or sorcerers looking to remove the beast’s rider.
She would much have liked to press herself against Katiki’s back, and nuzzle
against her warm fur. The Kadrin idea of springtime was a farce, colder than
the deepest winter she had ever known back home, or even visiting her mother in
Zorren.

She made a circuit of the wreckage, with two of her fellow
stripe-cat riders helping to keep the bystanders back. She was no sailor, but
she had traveled by ship. What had crashed from the sky was very much a ship.
What
odd magics the Kadrins work against us
, she mused.
They lack the
strength to stand against us, so they try to lift their boats above us like
archers’ towers in the sky.

Blood and broken bodies spattered the tall grasses amid the
wood, rope, and sailcloth that had once been a ship. She considered dismounting
to have a closer look, but decided to let others examine the wreck.

Too cold here. I will stay with Katiki.
Like the
other stripe-cat riders, she spent much of the day in her saddle. Her legs were
strapped securely to the sides of her mount, her strong thighs squeezing and
twisting to guide the well-trained animal. The act of dismounting took either
great flexibility to reach all the buckles and straps, or one or more
assistants. She took meals from the saddle, and sometimes slept atop her mount
as well, burrowing into the thick, luxuriant fur for warmth and comfort. Katiki
would grow restless if she was away from her for long. She was bonded to the
great cat, raising her from a kitten the size of a mastiff. Katiki sensed her
moods, and could read her thoughts just a bit—enough to obey Stotaala
unhesitatingly, but not so much as to understand plans. It was a welcome defense
against intrusive magic as well, as Kadrin sorcerers were known to bewitch
beasts to defy their nature.

“Pull all the bodies from the wreck and lay them out. Search
for orders, logs, journals, rank insignia, personal belongings—especially ones
with names or sigils on them,” she ordered, directing Megrenn troops as if she
were their commander. Since none of higher rank in the greater alliance army
were around, obeisance was hers.

The count went amiss somewhere beyond forty. That was the
point where partial bodies became problematic, and double-counting might have
begun. The worst news was that only one on the ship wore any garment indicating
membership in the Kadrin Imperial Circle.
I had hoped to find ten aboard, to
make a ship fly like a hunting bird. Ten fewer among the Kadrin sorcerers would
be cause to celebrate. One less feels hollow. If one sorcerer can make a ship
fly, how many more will we see?

“Find some chunk of that thing with Kadrin runes on it. Send
it over to the Ghelkans to examine,” she added.

They managed to shoot the thing from the sky. Let them
pick at its bones to see its workings.

* * * * * * * *

With one Kadrin airship felled, the other two beat a hasty
retreat for the city. They seemed to have realized that the Megrenn reinforcements
meant that the forestalled attack would be resumed. Their last chance to own
the field had just ended.

Stotaala took the spear and shield her spearmaidens handed
her. Twelve and nine summers they had and awaiting kittens of their own. The
elder, Shaminai, might be riding to war beside her in just two summers. Though
weaker with arms than older girls, or the few young men among the stripe-cat
riders, control of the beasts was paramount in battle. While Stotaala’s spear
was deadly, Katiki would kill twelve or fifteen men for every one that died on
her spear. Riding the great cats was a task for the young. It took supple limbs
and a healthy back to sway with the stripe-cats as they walked, and when they
ran, it took a skill not to be thrashed about, even with the rider’s legs
strapped in. Even Stotaala’s legendary mother Kaynnyn had not made it to her
thirtieth winter before retiring from the cavalry.

A trumpet sounded, and the ground rumbled beneath Katiki’s
feet. Despite their ineffectiveness attacking uphill against the city’s
defenses, the monohorns were leading the advance. The behemoths would provide
cover against the archers and sorcerers on the walls as the stripe-cats and
infantry made their advances.

A series of high-pitched whistles pierced the air. Stotaala
could not hear them, but rather felt them through her bond with Katiki, whose
ears were far more sensitive than her own. General Felana Haliff, Stotaala’s
commanding officer, had signaled the stripe-cat cavalry to begin their own
advance.

Perched high atop her mount, Stotaala still could not see
above the monohorns as she trailed the monstrous cattle in their advance. The
terrain around the city was flatter than the city itself, but still rolled a
bit. She felt nothing but disdain for the monohorn riders as their mounts
slowed and sped based on the grade.
The brutes just pull to the left and
right. The beasts go whatever pace they find easy.

They were in no rush. Arrows rained among them, but the
cover from the monohorns made the passage less risky, at least as battlefields
accounted such things. They conserved energy for the assault on the walls.

Katiki lurched to the side suddenly, narrowly avoiding
freshly dropped monohorn dung.
I cannot wait to be out from behind these
foul animals. They reek of manure and grime.
Had other, more genteel
officers caught a whiff of Stotaala away from her mount, they might have
thought much the same of her. She and Katiki were one, though, and the smell
that the stripe-cat had was invisible to her nose.

No thunderous reports were heard from the goblin siege
engines. They were being held in reserve in case the Kadrin airships made
another appearance above the battlefield. Thus, when the whistles blew to
signal the charge, they were heard across the plains.

Katiki needed no prodding. She sped forth, shooting between
two shielding monohorns as if they stood grazing. Stotaala swayed in time with
her stripe-cat’s bounding gait, pressing her torso as flat as she could manage
while still keeping a tight grip on spear and shield. She peered up as best she
could, but knew that until they reached the wall, she was best off leaving
their path to Katiki’s discretion and staying sheltered against her back.